Australian Open Day 10 Review: Serena stays cool on hottest day yet

Australian Open Betting / Sean Calvert / 28 January 2009 / Leave a Comment

Temperatures soar to their highest levels so far, Eurosport offer banal speculation about Tsonga's inspiration, Sean Calvert's concerns about Verdasco's love life prove unfounded and Serena comes back from the brink again.

Opening proceedings was women's number four seed, Elena Dementieva, who was taking on Carla Suarez Navarro for a place in the semi finals.

Temperatures on court were around the 40-degree mark and the combination of excessive heat and perhaps the occasion proved too much for an error prone Suarez Navarro, who was beaten in straight sets 6-2, 6-2.

The next match on Rod Laver was thankfully a much more competitive encounter, but only once the tournament organisers finally decided that enough was enough and closed the roof after the first set of Serena Williams v Svetlana Kuznetsova.

I've been in Melbourne when the extreme heat policy has been in effect and I remember it being so ridiculously hot that it becomes difficult to even walk from court to court without shade, so I have no idea how the players cope.

Kuznetsova fared markedly better than Williams in the opening stage of the match and although the standard wasn't great, the Russian found herself a set and a break ahead at 7-5, 5-3.

The number eight seed, who had never been further than this stage of the tournament, served for the match at 5-4 and Williams was backed at a high of [40.0] for the title, as it appeared she was on the brink of defeat but, in typical Williams fashion, she took the remaining games of the set to level matters at one set apiece.

One felt that Kuznetsova had blown her chance of making it an all-Russian semi-final line up and so it proved, as Williams took control of the match and ran out a 6-1 winner in the final set to advance to a final four clash with Dementieva.

The former three-time champion is now [2.96] for a fourth title and, for the record, she has faced either match point or an opponent serving for the match in each of her previous title winning occasions, so perhaps that is an omen worth taking into account when she takes on Dementieva ([3.35]) next.

The first men's match of the day was Fernando Verdasco, who was looking for some consolation after apparently being canned by Ana Ivanovic, against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

Despite having several opportunities in the opener, Tsonga failed to take them and it was Verdasco who took it by a comfortable margin in a tie break.

Tsonga struck straight back to level at 1-1 by taking the second set 6-3 and we had a match on our hands.

As we awaited the start of set three, Chris Bradnam on Eurosport rather suggested that Tsonga would perhaps be motivated to win this tournament by the inauguration of Barack Obama.

He was quite pleased with his observation until Frew McMillan poured rain on his parade by adding that perhaps the defence of last year's ranking points might be a more pertinent incentive for Tsonga to do well here.

Neither theory appeared to be quite on the money, as Verdasco took the opening four games of the set to move in to [1.6] for the match.

He took the set 6-3 and when he converted his third and fourth breaks of the Tsonga service to take a 5-2 lead in the fourth, he just needed to serve it out to earn a place in his first grand slam semi-final.

Verdasco did it with ease and is in to [17] for the title, having been matched as high as [690].

The key to his win was the fact that he took each of his four break point chances, while Tsonga could only manage two conversions from his 13 opportunities.

It was still in excess of 42 degrees at the start of the Nadal v Simon clash and it was so hot that the roof remained closed at 7.30pm.

The roof situation didn't appear to help a nervous looking Simon at all though, as the world number one took the first set at a canter, 6-2.

It looked like this one was going to fizzle out into another dull routine straight sets win for Nadal, when the Spaniard went a break up in the second, but Simon started to play well and indeed the Frenchman broke back and held a set point at 5-4 on the Nadal serve.

Nadal upped his level though and after defending the set point, he broke Simon to love in the next game and served it out to take the set 7-5.

Not many people come back from two sets behind to beat Nadal and the Frenchman wasn't likely to buck that particular trend.

He did threaten a few times and in fairness the second and third sets were close, but Simon was unable to make the big points count and Nadal ran out a 6-2, 7-5, 7-5 winner, which guarantees a Spaniard in the final here for the first time since 1997, when Carlos Moya was beaten by Pete Sampras.

Nadal faces Verdasco next and is in to [2.3] for the title, while Roger Federer is currently trading at [2.16].